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Seeking
God More Earnestly – Advent Themes
in the Letter of James
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by Dr. Mark Whitters
The early weeks of Advent give the
Christian people an opportunity to come back
into contact with biblical themes often
skimmed over during the rest of the year: we
are travelers in this life, always on the
lookout for a home we will receive at our
destination. The biblical categories for this
identity are pilgrim and prophet. At the same
time Advent, like all holy seasons, gives us
another chance to seek God more earnestly in
our spiritual lives.
Early in the season most of the liturgical
readings hark back to the Old Testament and
its concerns for justice and future judgment.
Then come readings more focused on the
messianic promise and our relationship with a
personal God. Somewhat surprisingly, the
letter of James has something to say about all
of these themes, for it perhaps more than any
other Christian writing marshals Old Testament
themes under the New Testament banner.
Unfortunately, the message of James has
historically been relegated by preachers and
pamphleteers to the realm of polemics and
partisan doctrines. Historically, James has
been argued over more than meditated upon.
In this essay I hope to hear what James
would have to say about Advent, especially in
its early weeks’ traditional themes of
pilgrimage, prophecy, and piety. Three
passages especially draw our attention to the
identity of God, and by implication, our own
identity in relation to him: James 1:1, 4:4-6,
and 5:10.
God
Is Our Home
“James, a servant of
God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to
the twelve tribes in the Diaspora:
Greetings” - James 1:1.
Right from the beginning the recipients
of the letter are addressed as pilgrims and
foreigners in this earthly life. Biblically
speaking, the Diaspora tribes were the Jews
scattered in areas outside their homeland. One
can imagine how hard it was for the biblical
Jews to maintain their identity outside
Palestine where language and culture naturally
reinforced their sense of being separate from
the outside world. James now calls his
audience the heirs of those Jews. And so we,
his modern audience, are to imagine our own
lives as a constant struggle to maintain our
special identity, to maintain the customs of
our homeland.
My mother is Czech and has tried (with limited
success) to get everyone in our family to
pride themselves in the literature, music, and
food of her mother country. But the old world
is so different from the world her children
grew up in! James wants us to remember that we
should never consider ourselves as citizens of
this world and its identity. Rather we are
outsiders, strangers, pilgrims to the values
and culture of this world.
Theme of pilgrimage
It is
conceivable that the author has adopted the
name of “James” as a reminder of his Diaspora
status. Writings were often sent off in the
religious world of late Second Temple Judaism
under names calculated to persuade audiences
that their authority should be accepted. James
in Greek and Hebrew is written “Jacob,” and
who better is qualified to address the “twelve
tribes” than the Old Testament father who
begot them? Who better to represent the whole
Diaspora audience than the one whose best
years were spent away from his native
land? This is the one who spoke to
Pharaoh, the archetype resident of this world,
“The days of my sojourning are 130 years. Few
and evil have been the…years of my life, and
they have not attained to the…years of my
fathers in …their sojourning” (Genesis 47:9);
and later he ordered his son Joseph to bring
back his bones to his native soil when his
family returned.
If it is conceivable that James is a subtle
hint to us that we are also pilgrims, then it
is no wonder that the first chapter of the
letter of James is filled with teachings about
trials, temptations, and struggles to maintain
identity in an alien land. In Genesis 28-32 we
read about Jacob, namesake of James. His life
was filled with such afflictions and tests,
caused by the Diaspora world around him (Laban
and Pharaoh), by his own decisions and
passions (his duplicity and deceit in dealing
with his father Isaac and his brother Esau),
and by God himself (the dream at Bethel and
wrestling with the angel at the River Jabbok).
The New Testament Jacob first identifies
himself and his pilgrim audience and then
immediately speaks of trials and tests
(1:2-4). A similar theme emerges later in the
first chapter when trials are connected to
temptations and desires (1:12-15).
Then later in the chapter, the letter
addresses the other pilgrim theme mentioned
above: how to maintain a religious identity in
an alien world. Along these lines he also says
that we must stay “unstained from the world”
(1:27). The audience may be deluged by a
foreign culture replete with its own styles
and fads, but James does not want them to
forget about who they are (1:24-25), or be
deceived about their religious origins (1:22,
26).
The alternative to assimilation is deliberate
recognition of our home and ancestry: “Do not
be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights with
whom there is no variation or shadow due to
change” (1:16-17). James says that we are from
above, we have God as our Father, and our
connection with our home and ancestry cannot
be eradicated by change.
“From above” means that everything worth
living for is from the place where God
dwells. We should spend our time
thinking and dreaming of our true home in
heaven. This resident alien mentality is very
much a part of any immigrant’s existence.
Whenever I travel to the Middle East – and I
have been there six times in the last 11 years – I am
acutely aware of my own cultural identity,
either through my clothes, my language, or
even my height. I might as well be from above
as try to blend in, and recent international
events have never accentuated my
distinctiveness more. The lesson of
James 1: Would that my spiritual identity in
this world were as evident as my cultural
identity!
God as our Father
James
next point – having God as our Father – speaks
of our home and reminds us again of the role
of parents: they are responsible for our
upbringing in a strange world. It reminds us
of Jacob who found his way back to his home
through all his trials. After a sleepless
night of wrestling with an angel, he looked
upon his sibling rival Esau and said, “I have
seen your face, which is like seeing the face
of God” (Gen 33:10). Jacob had come to accept
the years of his pilgrim existence with Laban
as the dealings of God who doggedly stuck with
him and disciplined him. One of the most
poignant scenes in the book of Genesis is that
of Jacob blessing Pharaoh instead of striving
against him, confessing his resignation to a
life of sojourning (47:9-10).
Finally, there is “no variation or shadow due
to change” with God. The thing that makes the
life of a pilgrim so hard to live is constant
exposure to strange cultural patterns.
Somehow, somewhere, there needs to be a source
of constancy for the traveler so that
stability can be attained.
What is it that a family with young kids needs
when it is traveling? Routine. Some semblance
of order is particularly important for
children who are thrown off schedule and
eating all the wrong foods and behaving in all
the wrong ways. What is it that keeps older
folks from finding rest when they are away
from home? It is the strange bed or the stress
of a new environment. This is the reason
pilgrims need a strong dose of stability in
their new residence.
How does this sense of home, fatherly
presence, and stability relate to the rest of
the letter? Throughout the rest of the letter
this “new” Jacob will speak about people most
vulnerable to Diaspora stress: the widow, the
orphan, and the weak. Among the weak would be
the poor, perhaps the prisoner, the suffering
and the sick, the errant of faith (2:5, 15;
5:4, 13, 14, 19). “Pure and undefiled
religion” (1:27), he concludes, is concerned
with people in these conventional Old
Testament categories. They epitomize the
existence of a Christian among the twelve
tribes of the Diaspora.
God
Is Our Friend
The second convergence of James and Advent is
the call for a deeper relationship with God as
our friend and lover. That this call builds on
the first theme is evident in these lines:
“You adulteresses! Do you not know that
friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the
world makes himself an enemy of God” (James
4:4).
For James friendship is not based on mere
creeds and formality. He has already said in
2:19 that even the demons have a certain
correct formal faith. But there is no love
lost between demons and God! Friendship
rather works in the realm of tenderness and
favoritism – that is why he uses such a
strong word “adulteresses” to describe wayward
members of the twelve tribes of the
Diaspora. Passion is involved, and
passion drives its victims to go way beyond
formality and externals. In fact, in
chapter 2, James brings up two biblical
demonstrations of passionate, perhaps
irrational love: Abraham and Rahab.
Friendship with
God
Abraham
was so caught up in friendship with God that
he was willing to go way beyond the formal
covenant (Genesis 12) so as to sacrifice his
own son (Genesis 22), and thus (says James)
“he was called a friend of God” (2:23).
Protestants and Catholics fight about faith
versus works, but such categories are
meaningless to friends. James is simply saying
that formalities and boundaries are beside the
point, for passion is not so rational and
doctrinal. In the Semitic mind of James, one
is either passionately in love with God or one
is not; one is a friend of God and the other
is a friend of the world; there is no
in-between state of relationship.
Rahab is so incongruous an example of
friendship with God, that James must be now in
the throes of passion himself. Rahab was
not among the twelve tribes of Israel. And she
was a prostitute, a person that most of us
would consider as a prime candidate for a
friend of the world. And that is the point:
God certainly takes strange lovers! If passion
for God is demonstrated by such practices,
then God is willing to reciprocate with
“favor” (or, as the common translations have
it, “grace”) for the humble (4:6). He
loves those who show passion for God in their
lives.
If passion is not in the relationship with
God, then formality is not enough. This is
stated repeatedly in such lines as “faith
without works is dead” (2:17). This point is
well illustrated by a hockey story.
Hockey coach and all-time great Wayne Gretzky
was once asked to motivate one young player
who had come to a training camp that Gretzky
was sponsoring. After hearing how much talent
the young man had, but how little he
practiced, Gretzky simply said, “I can’t do
anything. Great players have great passion. If
they don’t spend all their free time
practicing the sport, they will never become
great players, no matter what techniques I
teach them.”
In the commercial world of imperial Rome,
nobody stood on equal ground. Laws were not
set up to equalize opportunity in the various
trading ventures and cultural exchanges
throughout the Mediterranean Sea. In fact,
friendship was the most important factor for
success, more important than ability and
product or service. If you had a highly
positioned friend who showed you favor, you
had an open door for business and profit. In a
strange land where you wanted to live, you
relied on your “patron” or friend to defend
you and make connections for you, more than on
the local laws and structures. The whole thing
rested more on what modern folks would regard
as unfair favoritism and partisanship. This is
closer to what James means by friendship with
God: he favors those who are passionate about
him.
Here is another story that may help to put
James’ Advent word in a more palatable form.
My now-deceased brother Sam was a Down’s
syndrome member of our family. As he grew up,
he would require special time and attention
from his family and caregivers. Outsiders who
never spent time with Sam probably felt sorry
for Sam and for us. However, Sam returned
manifold whatever care he received, for he was
irrepressively cheerful and grateful. Here is
the question that James asks: did we
take care of Sam because he was a member of
the family, or did we take care of Sam because
we liked Sam? Certainly it is both. But
James emphasizes the second part: we loved to
be with Sam because he was passionate about
us. We loved to be with Sam because he was our
friend. At his wake service this
“disadvantaged” fellow had some 400 people
attend, many of whom were strangers telling us
in tears that Sam was their friend, too.
God Is Judge
Finally, James and the Advent season say that
God is judge and vindicator. He will look out
for all those mentioned earlier: the
sojourner, the widow, the orphan, those
defrauded or persecuted in court, and the
special “friends.” In addition to these
groups, James refers to a couple other
categories of people, probably because they
epitomize Christ and the Diaspora life
mentioned above: the prophet and the martyr.
The prophet and the martyr are the ones that
spiritually sum up the Old Testament groups,
and Christ represents them. This theme of
judge and vindicator is summed up in this
short line: “Behold, the Judge is standing at
the door” (5:9).
God vindicates all who are
his friends, pilgrims, and prophets
The first few verses of the last chapter are a
good summary of the prophetic books of the Old
Testament with its concern for justice in the
face of oppression and violence (5:1-6). In a
remarkable shift of persona James speaks like
a “gloom and doom” prophet, as if in his
mind’s eye he has already seen the end of the
world. Earlier he was more tentative in his
address to the rich (e.g., 2:6). Now he
addresses the rich and powerful directly as if
he were pronouncing a decree instead of
preaching repentance.
In contrast to their idea that wealth and
institutions will last forever, James says
that the Judge will demand an accounting for
their activities. Even martyrdom is evident in
this world of have and have-nots: “You have
condemned; you have murdered the righteous
person. He does not resist you” (5:6). Here,
the eye of James’ mind is most clearly on
Christ, the martyred “righteous person,”
oppressed by the rich and powerful of this
world.
Then the rest of the chapter deals with the
likes of the solitary prophets who are like
spiritual foreigners: righteous Job who held
out against all those who harassed him, and
long-praying Elijah who stood for heaven’s
agenda over the world’s. These were all heroes
in the Old Testament, and they are the hall of
fame members for the theology of the letter of
James. In the end, the thing that holds all
these models together is the sense that God
will vindicate them all, and through them will
vindicate all of us who live as pilgrims,
prophets, and friends of God.
What is our task
therefore as James closes out his letter?
Under this theme of vindicator and judge he
outlines three lessons: (1) We are to
live like the prophets (5:10). Perhaps we
cannot have the same canonical stature, but we
can live lives that speak of prophetic values
and priorities. We can resist the world’s
values and goals. This lesson has been
implicit throughout the whole letter of James.
In fact we can cut back on our dosage of
worldly wisdom (3:13-16) that is at the heart
of our trust in materialism and wealth.
(2) We can pray (5:16) like Elijah. There is
always hope if we keep our prayers
steady. Even the forces of nature
(suffering, sickness, not to mention the
weather!) and our personal desires (4:1-4) are
subject to us, if we do not succeed in getting
the attention of powerful human and
institutional authorities. Prayer will allow
us to hold out in the midst of the hostile
forces.
(3) We can take care of each other (5:19).
Fraternal care is never a waste of time. When
someone takes time to listen and counsel, it
has a healing effect on everyone. The last
line, though hard to unravel, merely suggests
that the whole effect of one soul taking care
of other souls is greater than the sum of its
parts. In effect, the spiritual dangers of the
Diaspora world are deadly for the readers of
the letter of James, and personal
relationships of encouragement and support
make a difference for the life of everyone in
our care.
This article was originally
published in Word & Word,
Volume 26, Number 4, Fall 2006. Used with
permission.
Dr. Mark F. Whitters is a member of The
Servants of the Word, an ecumenical
brotherhood serving youth and fostering
racial dialogue in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
He is an instructor in ancient history and
religion at Eastern Michigan University
and coordinator for the Society of
Biblical Literature, Midwest Region. Dr.
Whitters is publishing a book on Acts of
the Apostles and a new way to study
Scripture, forthcoming in the summer of
2017, Beacon Books. Tentative title is:
"An Unfinished Tale."
Illustration of man walking with Bible
(top) by (c) Kevin Carden
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